Releasing Novels as "Chapters" or "All at Once"?

[Sextified]

- - - - If your story idea is so big that it doesn't seem to fit anywhere in any format, what would YOU do with it? - - - -


I am sure everyone here has jotted down a few notes about a scene, and have seen it slowly grow into something larger. A simple stroke story begs for a second chapter. Characters get a hold on the author or the audience. Backstories emerge unasked for. A series begins to take shape. A little momentum becomes a slippery slope.

Soon your silly little 'notion' is bigger than you'd ever planned on it being, and IT is pulling you around by the leash it has firmly attached to YOUR wrist. Often taking you places you hadn't planned on going, and sucking up all the resources you need for other stories and real life, like some rogue Black Hole wandering thru your personal solar system.

So what then?

If you accept that your 'larger' than planned for story SHOULD or MUST be told?

How would you handle it?

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I have gone down the 'Try to post one chapter a month" route before.

That has a lot to offer both the reader and the writer. Feedback and continual improvements can happen that way for the Author. Readers get a regular dose of the story. Most of the times there is 'enough' sex in each 'episode' to keep everyone happy. Longer stories don't have to languish unseen on a computer for months or years. Motivational lapses get solved with the pressure to keep on schedule.

The downsides to releasing a long work that way are often a little less obvious.

Often truly interesting plot opportunities are lost. The previous storyline is set in stone, fixed firmly in the readers minds. Errors in direction are locked in. There is a great deal of stress, always writing with an 'eye on the past' to make sure 'things fit' with the old universe. New ideas for the story and characters get dampened down, because they no longer 'fit the starting category' well enough. The episodic nature of the work makes any idea of rereleasing it as a true novel impossible, because the rhythm of it's creation has made it too choppy.

The opposite approach has its own issues.

Writing in a total vacuum is hard for some authors, and absolutely impossible for others. Without at least one other viewpoint getting a chance to make criticisms and suggestions, the 'hidden story' can often lose its way. Get muddled in a morass of unnecessary details. Or important thoughts are left out, because the writer is 'assuming' that his absent audience can leap over the obviously missing clues. Motivation to continue can wane, and entire projects can get abandoned. Hope of it ever getting finished can turn to despair.

Even if you are lucky enough to get a few loyal and talented Pre-Readers, and other Authors, to become partners in being an early Screen Test audience? Eventually the long slog thru an entire novel can weigh you down.

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I am tending to think about this kind of analogy in a more detailed way these days:

The writing for a traditional daily or weekly "Soap Opera" series, blockbuster movies with the inevitable followup "Sequels", long involved well planned "Multiverse" franchises, books turned into years worth of "Mini-Movies" on pay channels, and the "One-Off" epic story that stands alone never to be added to or expanded by anyone.

Regardless of your feelings about George Lucas and his many works, these days the independent fans who grew up with his characters have picked up the ball and are carrying it forward for him. Movies, mini-series, animated shows. Sure he is still at the helm, but the drive is someday going to continue without his input. The recent mega sale of his entire franchise should take care of that problem, although the future quality might eventually suffer.

The same could be said with Stan Lee, and I do miss his little 'cameos' in the movies. Or someone like Agatha Christie, whose estate continues to fight to keep modern "garbage movies" from ruining her legacy. Or how Tolkien would view his works being 'chopped up' into six epics for a wider but often mostly illiterate audience.

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How would YOU approach your OWN Big Idea?

Never start it? Play around the edges? Explore a few characters at a time? Create a web of smaller 'interlinked' stories? Release little 'mini-series' to keep the weight of the story from dragging you down?

Or are you okay with NOT giving into pressure, telling your complete story well, and let the reader's deal with their own 'selfish' issues in their own way?

Would you butcher a good narrative into smaller digestible chunks, with so much recap and filler to give everyone heartburn? Or struggle on alone just hoping you will have the chance to complete the hidden solo effort? That it will one day find an audience, and not have to be a year's worth of work on some poor editor's computer, as they struggle to fix the repetitive and easily avoidable mistakes of a literary recluse?

With so much effort and personal anguish going into a project, should you be writing such a tale with the constant idea of an eventual sale?

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For some authors this will be a ridiculous thread.

For others, it could be one last warning sign about a murky and dangerous path they are already well along. I know that some here on this forum have already ran smack dab into the monster that lurks at the end of this road.

Some have run away screaming, others have fought and died in place, while a few won their battles and made their own choices about the fate of their 'little' world that grew out of control.

 

[SimonDoom]

You don't say enough about your story for anyone to give you really good advice. For instance:

1. How long is it, or do you expect it to be, in number of words?

2. What erotic categor(y/ies) does it cover?


Here's my one piece of advice, in the absence of more information: If you publish it in chapters, make the chapters about 10,000 words or more. Your story will do better that way. Don't publish it in really short chapters.

 

[Sextified]

The thread was started to mainly start a generic discussion on how to handle ideas that have come to have a life of their own.

- - - -

I have already posted about three full novels worth over on another website. Fifty chapters ranging from about 15,000 words to 125,000 words. It's a world building excercise and has about forty fully realized characters. Every allowable sexual kink and category got covered, because the sex written about followed what each individual character began to covet the most.

Personally, I have made the decision to 'cut logistical ties' completely with the old series.

I can't stand the word 'reboot', but that is what I am doing with completely reforging the old story. I have started it again, at the exact same place, but added in new characters and the material from the unfinished books early.

In my opinion and experience you just can't fix something this large, from where your skills were a decade previously, and enjoy it. Or make it actually something worth reading if you do try to rescue it.

- - - -

Currently, the idea for my project is to work in "Story Arcs", and have each one self contained and good enough to sell. Each Arc would have its own beginning/middle/end, and simply fall at whatever length it needs to. They would be released here in the Novel section, to test interest and gain feedback, before the final edit is done for sale purposes. I would put plenty of 'Story Tags' and warnings about the sexual content covered, to hopefully not offend readers.

If the series ever does get picked up, obviously those plans would change.

I have maybe 400 Lit pages worth of brand new, reimagined and partially reedited material so far. I plan on taking until the end of the year before I make any decisions about where to split anything, if at all.

I won't be posting ANYTHING until those problems are all worked out.

I've got several very helpful new and old friends, reading along, and properly chiming in when I make mistakes. I am actually happy with the direction and progress, now, but I really was a bit depressed about it a few weeks ago.

- - - -

I just wanted to start a discussion about how other authors here handled the stress of such big and long term projects.

 

[TadOverdon]

I have gone down the 'Try to post one chapter a month" route before.

That has a lot to offer both the reader and the writer. Feedback and continual improvements can happen that way for the Author. Readers get a regular dose of the story. Most of the times there is 'enough' sex in each 'episode' to keep everyone happy. Longer stories don't have to languish unseen on a computer for months or years. Motivational lapses get solved with the pressure to keep on schedule.

The downsides to releasing a long work that way are often a little less obvious.

Often truly interesting plot opportunities are lost. The previous storyline is set in stone, fixed firmly in the readers minds. Errors in direction are locked in. There is a great deal of stress, always writing with an 'eye on the past'

Yes, this is one of the critical disadvantages, for me, of publishing as you write. Our first drafts tend to be pretty loose, and I have a tendency to rename characters mid-story, or to amend some part of the premise, or to backfill incidents in early chapters in order to set up an event that's unexpectedly materialized somewhere a later part of the book.

I had a Jacobs twin sibling disappear like Chuck Cunningham, four chapters into The Mom Next Door, and then had to excise her introduction and set-up from the opening of the story.

It just doesn't work.

The only way I know how to write a book is to write it and finish it before publishing. And the way I know that it's all I know how to do is: I've done it chapter-by-chapter, too.

 

[KeithD]

If the novel is being submitted to a contest, it will have to go "all at once." Otherwise, I do it in chapters, with the first installment saying it's completed, now many chapters there are, and approximately when the last chapter will post. Then I submit the next chapter when the previous one has posted until the novel is complete.

My chaptered works do generate other works, often with the same or an overlap of characters. I just let them be other works, though.

 

[Javahead]

If the novel is being submitted to a contest, it will have to go "all at once." Otherwise, I do it in chapters, with the first installment saying it's completed, now many chapters there are, and approximately when the last chapter will post. Then I submit the next chapter when the previous one has posted until the novel is complete.

My chaptered works do generate other works, often with the same or an overlap of characters. I just let them be other works, though.

But I note that you have the whole story complete before you start posting; for you, chapter by chapter vs one huge lump is a matter of preference.

Which is not only easier for readers to keep up with, but seems like a lower stress way to post. Spin-offs are a whole different thing. Several of my stories have linked spin-offs, but they’re independent enough to be read separately; for a single long story, even if posted in parts, I won’t post until its totally complete.

 

[Emirus]

If you are writing a series of ten or less chapters write it and finish it before you submit it. If it’s going to be longer than that submitting the 10 chapters at 7 to 14 days intervals will give you the opportunity to write further chapters. Unless you get sidetracked.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The OP seems to be talking about a reboot for the market place, where different dynamics apply. Readers expect a finished product if they're paying for it, for a start.

Whereas on Lit I think most (I'm not saying all) writers are doing it precisely to get the instant feedback of releasing on the go; and to be honest, there just might be a little less thought about "what readers want". I'm not saying readers aren't important, of course they are, but I for one am writing here on my terms, not theirs. Readers don't buy me a coffee priced book to say thank you - I have to buy my own coffee.

Taking a sabbatical to write versus writing on the run are different creative processes, neither is better nor worse; just different. Both work. I've done both, sworn I'd never do either again, and proceeded to write, mostly on the run because the instant gratification is better. Which is where pleasing readers kicks in.

My one piece of advice though, picking up on a word, is: if it's stressful, why do it? There must be more important things in your life to stress over, surely? Like working, to pay for your own coffee .

 

[Nightwaves]

Six of one, half a dozen of another...

I've released a number of short stories since 2010, but in the past few years, I've released one novella-sized story (around 80 pages), a series in 7 chapters (total page count over 200) and most recently a novel in one fell swoop (170 pages). All are doing well, at least ratings-wise, and I've received some very kind words with regard to feedback.

Really, I don't put too much thought into how I release my stories, but this most recent one, a single, novel-length story, has given me the greatest sense of accomplishment. Makes me wish I'd been patient and released the chaptered series in one big chunk.

Oh, and I write for myself, and not for others .

 

[SimonDoom]

The extra information helps some. I'm going to assume you intend to publish the story at Literotica. Let's say it's 125,000 and there are 50 chapters.

That comes out to 2500 words per chapter. That's way too short. Don't publish that way. Instead, combine 3-5 chapters into megachapters or parts of over 7500 words each, preferably 10,000 words each. Combine them artfully so you can get a reasonably satisfying reader experience with each one.

Ask yourself: Is the story dominated by a central fetish, kink, or sexual category? If the answer to that is yes, then publish the story in that category, and not in Novels. It will get far more attention that way. But beware that if your chapters ping pong around a lot of different categories you may lose readers who don't like the new category turn. Try to make sure each separately published part has some of the sexual interest that readers of that category are looking for.

Good luck.

 

[Duleigh]

I can't stand the word 'reboot', but that is what I am doing with completely reforging the old story. I have started it again, at the exact same place, but added in new characters and the material from the unfinished books early.

In my opinion and experience you just can't fix something this large, from where your skills were a decade previously, and enjoy it. Or make it actually something worth reading if you do try to rescue it.

I recently ran into the exact same issue; I had written myself into a corner in a (thankfully) unpublished story. I loved the concept, two broken people trapped together by a snowstorm fall in love, so I gutted it and changed everything. Location, roles, everything changed but the core of the story remained the same. I am currently posting it as a series of related but (mostly) independent stories of around 25,000 words each which are kept in order by titling them in alphabetical order. I am incredibly happy with the resulting tale.

Best of all, because now that they're so different, I think I may be able to salvage the original and submit it as a novella with ties to the new story. They already have ties, the characters in the new story ended up neighbors with the originals

 

[Blind_Justice]

I prefer to release my stories in one submission. No pesky waiting for the reader between installments, no pressure on me to find good "cutoff points".

I know that looking at my repository paints a different picture, considering the amount of chaptered stories on the list.

"Ghost In The Machine" was never meant to be more than an episodic playground for a few sex fantasies I had. Too bad one of my characters hijacked the story and I needed to wing it past chapter five. I was much less experienced back then and had clear path to the end. I'm amazed not many people seem to mind how messy the last few chapters are. And the story got plagiarized on amazon...

"Leo and the Dragon" was my second Lit release and a complete story. Stupid inexperienced me listened to the vets and carved it into chapters because the consensus was "shorter is better". I'm pretty sure I would have gotten a better score for the whole thing than the individual pieces.

"Mud and Magic" was too big for one Geek Pride event. I managed the deadline just barely, getting the main character out of his abusive family and dead-end village. I had the full story laid out up to the point where the MC faces down and beats one of the Big Bads and for a time I delivered a new long chapter each month, basically publishing what my editor could finish. Well, then my depression and Covid happened and shit got sideways, leaving the readers hanging.